In clinical settings, it is known to display medical imaging data as a cine loop. For example, it is common to acquire and display ultrasound data as 2D or 3D cine loops. The cine loops are typically used to show the motion of a periodically moving object such as an adult or fetal heart. Cine loops are typically played back as “endless loops.” It is extremely common for cine loops to include at least one of a spatial discontinuity or a phase discontinuity at a seam in the cine loop where cine loop transitions from an end of an image sequence to a beginning of the image sequence. These discontinuities originate from a variety of causes including irregular periodic motion of the structure being imaged, patient motion during the acquisition of the data, and any mismatch between the intended phase and the phase that was actually acquired.
Any discontinuities in the cine loop will result in an artifact that is visible to a clinician viewing the cine loop. These artifacts are distracting to the clinician and, in severe cases, could even lead to an improper diagnosis. For these and other reasons an improved method and medical imaging system for generating and displaying cine loops with reduced artifacts is desired.